They Had Gone On a Walk
by mholub00
Summary: And it was supposed to be safe but it wasn't. (Or The Events that Led Clint and Natasha to Live in Stark Tower.) (One-shot)


**A/N: In my mind, Clint and Natasha don't originally move into the Tower with everyone else, but they do eventually, and this is my version on how. Enjoy!**

They had been on a walk.  
He yells at himself now, questioning how he could be so stupid as to think it would be safe, that walking in the city would ever be safe, but of course he thought it would be safe because it should have been and  
All around them people scream.  
Someone asks if they need help and to call an ambulance and he ignores them, ignores everything but the woman on the ground in front of him, and in his mind he hears the gunshot, sees the gunshot, and watches the bewildered look, the scared look in her emerald eyes as a hand moves to her side and comes away red and  
The pool on the ground is growing bigger.  
A cold breeze rips through the air but his mind is buzzing, panicking, too much to feel it even on his bare skin and he presses his shirt harder and she moves a hand to try and help, her porcelain skin becoming paler but he's thankful she's still awake, that's she's stronger, and he finally drags his eyes up, whispering to her to stay with him, and looks wildly around at the terrified faces of the crowd, trying desperately to remember where the nearest SHIELD base is so he can get her there and  
In the corner of his eye, he sees it.  
Stark Tower looms above everything, above the city, and from where he sits on the concrete he can see the front doors, which has to be a good sign, and he turns back to her and with a groan of pain she chokes out a hell no because she knows what he's thinking, she usually does, and he would laugh, would smile at her ability to be so stubborn with a bullet hole in her side if she didn't have a bullet hole in her side and  
The crowd parts like water as he picks her up and runs.  
He finds Pepper Potts in the lobby of the building and she nearly yells in surprise, from both his deranged appearance and the fact she doesn't recognize him at all, but she sees the red hair, the woman in his arms, and she knew her once as Natalie, and he counts to seven, waits for the realization to settle in, before asking if they have a bathroom, some vodka, and a first aid kit he might be able to borrow, noting silently that if she dies because of those seven seconds at least it won't be entirely his fault and  
She ushers them onto the elevator.  
On the cold tile floor of a bathroom on the thirty-second floor of the tower, one of the living quarters that he supposes was meant for one of them or both of them or for no one in particular, he cleans and stitches and wraps just like he always does and afterwards she drinks what's left of the vodka straight from the bottle and it's routine because they've done it before, so when she closes her eyes finally, he leans against the counter and she sits between his legs, head on his chest, and he hums Johnny Cash since he doesn't know her Russian lullabies she sings when it rains and she falls asleep, slowly and calmly and he takes deep breathes because she's going to be alright and  
The men he briefly called a team bring him a sandwich.  
Bruce-who-had-nowhere-else-to-go is the one who asks what happened and he tells them the story, as short as it is, and they all look worried and it's Steve-who-wanted-to-belong that, if they would like to stay the night, offers his bed for her to sleep on since the couch in the lounge is actually quite comfortable and he wouldn't mind and Tony-who-was-tired-of-being-so-alone (she had decided that he had ulterior motives for offering up the tower as a base-of-operations, he couldn't simply be Tony-who-was-happy-to-help) rolls his eyes and extends the invitation to as long as they want because he could get furniture in the empty rooms with a snap of his fingers, and he snaps his fingers as if to demonstrate how fast that would be, and he says thank you and  
He carries her up to Steve's bedroom.  
From a chair next to the bed, since he felt weird laying on it, and in the dark he listens to her breath and it makes him less worried and something about being in the same building as Captain America and Iron Man, and maybe even the Hulk the smallest little bit, and knowing that if it came down to it, if there was ever a time he couldn't protect her, that they all would keep her safe makes him even less worried than that and that's good and as much as he thinks she would hate this initially, she could learn and  
He thinks it would be nice to stay for a while.


End file.
